It's the most wonderful time

Today is just 2 days till my daughter's first Christmas and we get to spend it with my husband's family. We have been in America for a week now and it's nice to be back. I have enjoyed some of the conveniences that we have been without in Germany, Panera bread being one of them.

My daughter has celebrated our vacation by rolling over for the first time, and the second, and the millionth. She just won't stop now that she figured it out. This has created a small problem when it comes to nap time and bedtime. She usually sleeps on her belly but since she knows how to roll over she won't stay there. She'll roll over and then get mad that she can't sleep cause she's on her back. Now we have to spend about 5 minutes at every nap, just flipping her over and over again. Good thing she is so cute.

I am getting anxious for the next leg of our trip, because Makenzie did so extremely well on the first leg. You wouldn't have known there was a baby on our flight. She only fussed one time for about 5 minutes when she got super tired. Other than that she was a perfect little angel. After our 10 hour flight we had to drive another 8 hours down to my mother-in-law's house. Even though she was sick and tired of being in her car seat, she stayed calm and hung out for basically the entire drive. We even got lucky with getting her on American time, it only took 3 days and she was sleeping almost as well as she did in Germany. Hopefully we can continue to be so lucky, even though she has a small cold.

I gotta say, even though my little lady has her bad days, we have been extremely lucky with her good nature and easy going attitude.

Leaving on a jet plane

Tomorrow we leave to finally return to America! It may only be for 24 days but I couldn't be happier about seeing everyone. We'll be spending 10 days with my husband's family and then driving to my family to spend 10 days with them. Then we have to try to catch a flight back to Germany, and although it will be sad to leave everyone, I am sure we will be ready to return to our calm lives here. I'll miss my pups a lot and I hope they behave for the sitter while we are gone.

Today has been the most busy day I have had in a VERY long time. I got to wake up early after barely getting any sleep. Took Makenzie to the doctor and found out that she is a shorty after all. Her growth spurts are only in weight and apparently the size of her head. She came in at 14.5 pounds, 24 inches long, and her head was 16 inches. That puts her in the 50th percentile for weight, 25th for height, and 90th for head size. When she was born she was in the 50th for weight, 95th for height, and 25th for head size. lol Guess she finally realized she shouldn't be tall since her daddy and I aren't.

After the doctor, I had to come home, pack up the dogs, and take my husband to work. I basically threw him out of the car and headed to the commissary to grab another bag of dog food and withdraw the cash so I could pay the sitter. So off to the sitter we go and of course I didn't trust my instincts and I got turned around. I figured out where I went wrong and go there about half an hour after I said I would be there. So of course she wasn't home because she had to pick up her own daughter from school. Finally she arrived and I got the dogs settled. While I set up their crates my "lovely" mutt, Keyush, decided to investigate the house. He is 2 years old and has yet to encounter a Christmas tree. Apparently the whole, tree in the house thing confused him and he tried to mark it. Luckily he had just gone to the bathroom outside so it wasn't much. But I still felt terrible and cleaned that up before I left to go back to the shop and get my husband. He needed to get the proper shoes for his blues since he somehow grabbed his suit shoes instead of his uniform ones. Once he was back at work I went to the post office and waited in line for 20 minutes to get a package.

Mind you, throughout all of this I have eaten NOTHING. Finally, everything is done and I get home at 5 at night. Yup, I was starving so after getting the last load of laundry going I cooked myself whatever I could scavenge from the fridge. And am enjoying it as we speak.

Since I will be so busy with my family I probably won't have time to get on and wish you all a Merry Christmas. So have a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year. See you when I get back!

This is the start of something new

Today I picked up 12 pocket cloth diapers with inserts. This will be my first experience with cloth diapers and I am really excited to see how it goes. Because of living in Germany we are limited in how much trash we are allowed. Our trashcan is so small that we can only fit one 10 gallon bag in it and that trash only goes every other week. We go through so many disposable diapers that we can fill up half of that bag just in diapers, let alone food scraps and things like that. It would be wonderful if we didn't have diaper trash to worry about, and how do I do that? With cloth diapers of course!

We started using them this afternoon and I love the way my little Makenzie looks in these adorable diapers. Plus, these ones are super easy. An insert goes into the pocket of the diaper and it's what holds all of the fluid. The rest of the diaper is shaped similar to a disposable and closes with snaps. It is even adjustable so it should last her for quite a while. I think the best thing about them is that when we are done having kids, any of the diapers that are still in good condition can be sold, so we will get a partial return on our investment.

I am getting anxious to see how much I continue to like them over the next few weeks but I have a feeling that I will enjoy them quite a bit. Who knew I could be a "granola" mom. Yeah, I'm not too extreme but I guess I've got a little crunchiness in me after all. hahaha

Dun Dun Duuuunnnn

After waiting for 5 days to hear back about my husband's leave request we find out that......it needs resubmitted! Somehow he managed to forget to put the city and state of where we are planning to go and the first two people didn't notice. It wasn't until the paperwork was with the MPF that someone caught on. Soooo, rather than just fixing the problem in at MPF and getting everything finalized he had to turn in all new paperwork and it has to go through the same people that already approved it before MPF will look at it again. Seriously frustrating because it is now less than 1 week from our planned departure date and we still don't know if we can go.

But to make sure all of our bases are covered I have been cleaning, packing, doing laundry, and setting up care for our dogs. This is all a big headache to be dealing with if we are stuck in Germany for Christmas. I'm not saying that I wouldn't enjoy spending my daughter's first Christmas as just the three of us in our own home, but I am dying to see my family. I want them to meet my daughter and I want to spend time with them since I haven't been back in over a year. I haven't even seen my in laws since my wedding, which was nearly a year and a half ago.

I guess I'll keep this one short, since I've got quite the fussy little girl on my hands tonight. But I needed to vent  a little of my frustrations with the bureaucracy of the military.

In the kitchen

A little background for those that don't know me all that well. I have always wanted to be able to cook but never thought I had the skills to do it. Yeah I could handle a simple spaghetti or bake a mean batch of cookies, but I wanted to be able to REALLY cook. And I wanted to enjoy it more than I did because I always loved the look on someones face when they ate something I made and enjoyed it.

Well, since I stay at home and do nothing but take care of the baby and house and dogs all day (and some days that is MORE than enough) I thought I would see how well I could do with some new recipes and new determination for cooking. Turns out that with a little practice that I might actually be good at this whole cooking thing. I have expanded my cooking abilities by probably 100 or so recipes and it is doing more than just making me happy. Yes, I love to see my husband enjoy a new dish that I prepared for our family, but what I love even more is seeing our grocery budget cut by nearly 33%! Now that money can go towards our savings account and what I call our "cushion." I am always worried about money and having something set aside for emergencies and unexpected expenses makes me a lot more calm.

With coupons and a game plan set when I went grocery shopping, I managed to get about 2 weeks worth of food for just over $60. That is much more what I like to see.  This week's menu (in no particular order) for lunch (I eat leftovers for dinner since I'm by myself and cereal is our breakfast staple):
homemade pizza, chicken fingers, chicken milano, chicken florentine, grilled cheese and tomato soup, garden salad with tuna, and finally meatball subs. Most of our options are pretty healthy and I love that we have started introducing so many veggies into our diet because I will admit I tend to really slack in that part of my diet.

Also, this is the last day of my first week of the 30 day shred and I am happy to say that I'm not nearly as sore as I was early on. It still hurts, don't get me wrong, but not as badly. But like they say "no pain, no gain."

Tis the season

I gotta say, for being the end of November I am so not in the Holiday spirit. I don't know if it's the lack of snow (or even cold weather) or if it's the uncertainty of what our Christmas plans will be. Our house has not a single Christmas decoration up and will probably not get a tree if things go as planned. We are waiting to find out if my husband's leave will get approved and it's only 2 weeks from the day his leave is set to begin. If we get leave we'll be going back to see our families and therefore find it silly to put up all of our decorations at home. If we don't get leave then we are staying here and will have to work quickly to make our home look festive. Maybe if I find some Christmas music to listen to I'll start feeling it more.

That being said, Christmas is my favorite time of year. Time to spend with family while celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. Our family has another special thing to celebrate at this time of year as well, my younger brother's birthday. He has turned out to be a wonderful young man and I am proud to call him my brother. I really am hoping to get back to see him turn 20 years old. I am also hoping to be able to share my daughter's first Christmas with all of my loved ones. The suspense is what is killing me.

Feel the burn

Today is the second day of my new workout routine. I started Jillian Micheal's 30 day shred yesterday and I gotta say, this is gonna be a rough 30 days. The workouts may only be 20 minutes long but the way they are set up, you definitely feel it by the end. But I don't care how difficult it might be because I am determined to lose the weight I gained while pregnant. Actually, I would be ok with losing more than that, but then again who wouldn't be ok with losing weight?

The best part about doing these workouts is that I am still in my own home and I hope that since my daughter watches me exercise that she will benefit from a good influence. Little by little we are getting rid of the junk food in this house and switching to healthy snacks. I'm not saying we will never indulge in a little ice cream or cookies, but I want there to be mostly healthy options available. Never again will we decide we want a snack and choose between chips, candy, brownies, or pretzels. Instead I want to offer things like granola, popcorn, fruit, or veggies as something to nosh on. 

Today has barely begun and I am feeling so accomplished. Maybe I'll keep the momentum going and finish cleaning the house. MAYBE

Give it a shot

So, I'm new to this whole blogging thing but figured I would give it a try. Not only so that I can get out what I only get to say to my 4 month old daughter and dogs, but also so that my friends and family know what is going on in my life. Living thousands of miles away from all of my loved ones can make keeping in touch difficult and even with the modern wonders that are Facebook and Skype, I find that there are many people I miss out on talking to.

This is for all those wondering how I am doing with my new little family and how I manage to do everything at home while taking classes and retaining some sanity with the madness that is the military. Someone may even stumble across this that has a spouse that has just entered the military or is even considering it. This is also for them. Only someone that has experienced the military lifestyle can tell you what to expect, and even then they won't know exactly what your individual experience might be like because no two relationships are the same, nor two service members.

The title of my blog says it all. I am making my own life and my own home with my family wherever we go. I chose to capitalize only three letters in the title. These capital letters represent my daughter's initials and throughout the journey of this blog I am sure I will mention her many a time. I'll post tomorrow, or later this week, giving you all a little more of a taste for who I am. Can't wait to see how the adventure of blogging goes.